Catch 22
by amphigory
Summary: . genfic . "Just for that," they say menacingly, "we're putting flowers in your hair."


_notes_ » This thing comes as a surprise, even to me. xD But I was looking through my own purikura and thought, _Hey, this has potential._ And then it developed into this _fluff ball_ that actually exceeds its maximum dimension. Haha. Additionally, I always find it hard to write Kyouya, so if someone thinks he comes off totally wrong here, please let me know. PLEASE.

_warnings _» Have to go ahead and say _none._

_disclaimer _» I have not the insight to divine why you might possibly think that I own Ouran. These rights belong to someone else. Sadly.

* * *

_c a t c h 2 2_

* * *

"Kyouya-senpai, we said to do an _eating pose._"

"I had no reason to oblige."

"You could at least help us edit some of the pictures."

He doesn't take the pen that's being offered. Instead, he glances between it and his clipboard, held in both arms, and shrugs noncommittally. "My hands are full."

They _are._

"Just for that," they say menacingly, "we're putting flowers in your hair."

xXx

Partaking in the purikura experience is, predictably, Tamaki's idea. _A quaint pastime, _he says, _for commoners who lack the time and money to spend on photographers!_

He doesn't bother expanding his explanation to include the fact that purikura is a pastime mostly limited to elementary schoolgirls.

And maybe perverts. But that's a story for another day.

"It'll be fun!" he exclaims, and Kyouya wonders how the hell he could know such a thing when he hadn't even _heard_ of purikura before the day before.

That, and Haruhi's expression speaks volumes by itself.

xXx

The photo booth they choose is either called _Princess _or _Love Flower Heart Joy!_ He feels ill.

None of them know what to do for the first photo, so Tamaki randomly clicks whatever buttons are the brightest and they all end up doing takoyaki cosplay. Then the countdown is a little too fast, and he can't move back _quite quickly enough_, and instead of appropriately appearing in the image, he is awkwardly flailing in the background.

Hikaru and Kaoru look as if they'd rather be eating each other. Everyone else just looks confused.

Kyouya can't find the right mind to care, either way.

xXx

On Tamaki's insistence that Haruhi supply them with a theme for their second photo (because using the pre-made templates was rather a bother), for surely _commoner knowledge_ would give her clever insight, she pauses for only a moment.

"Eating."

"… Eating?"

"Pretend that you're eating. Then you can put food in later."

"Ah," he says. How genuinely Haruhi.

It sounds like _ootoro._

"Boring!" comes a tease from somewhere in the background. "Couldn't we do, like, superheroes or something?"

"You dared to destroy the precious dreams of my clever daughter?!" he cries, despite said daughter's weak argument that, really, being superheroes does sound like more fun. "If Haruhi wants to do food, then we'll do food!"

So they do.

Kyouya imagines he is eating food that tastes better than dead air.

xXx

When they move to editing their photos, Tamaki _insists_ that he and Haruhi do the first one _together_, having forgotten her at-sea-ness with anything artistic.

On the third time Hikaru and Kaoru innocently ask her what it is that she's drawing (while Tamaki croons in the background that it's _surely a reflection of her love!_), and why she's not just using the symbols that came with the program, she simply puts down the pen and says, exasperated, "You do it."

At the devious leers she receives, she instantly regrets it.

xXx

The idea for everyone to imitate someone else for their third shot, surprisingly, comes from Honey, who pulls a mortifyingly accurate version of Tamaki's bedroom expression and duly disturbs nearly everyone else.

Hikaru has let his eyes well up with tears and is clenching his fists together tightly, while his brother simply looks completely deadpan.

Tamaki is staring at the camera wide-eyed, with a rather doe-like (read: love-filled) expression, and no one can figure out who he means to be.

They figure Mori and Kyouya are doing fair imitations of each other, and Tamaki cries that his daughter, with her_ sweetsweet ability to ignore all unnatural things_, does a perfect replication of herself.

And Kyouya, for his part, stays away.

xXx

Because of the fact that Tamaki spends most of his time telling perfect strangers how wonderfully photogenic his daughter is and drawing hearts around her name (despite the fact that he is told, _numerous times_, that everyone looks that good under white light), it takes Hikaru and Kaoru less than 30 seconds change his rather lovey-dovey photos into something just as equally_ not_.

And Kyouya watches them eagerly change the rose in their lord's extended hand into a lollipop, or a pipe, or something equally childish, snickering, and adding clown hats, pilot goggles, rainbow-coloured scarves, anything, _anything_ to the image to make it, as they say, more aesthetically-pleasing.

"No, no, we mean it! This reflects Tono's true self, right?" they call out as they hand over the pens to Honey (assuring him that, _yes,_ there were plenty of bunny patterns).

They're lucky he's already retreated to his corner of woe.

xXx

He is accosted by a small, pink creature at around the same time he hears the printer stop firing away in the background.

"Kyou-chan, for you!"

But before Kyouya can say that he doesn't want what he's just been given, the creature has bolted.

xXx

For their last photo, Tamaki proclaims that they should all glomp Haruhi, eyes shimmering with _unshed love just waiting to fall in the form of tears of joy_, as he _so aptly_ puts it, but at her (adamant) refusal, they settle instead on the theme of 'cute family photo'.

Tamaki, naturally, takes his own course of action; he has his arm wrapped around his daughter, staring at the camera with a smouldering expression, but someone has scrawled the characters for 'idiot' above him. Haruhi, for her part, looks as if she means to run away.

The twins, he notes, are not looking at the camera for once. Kaoru has wrapped his arms around his brother's neck and is pressing his lips to his cheek, pulling them close together. Both of them are grinning.

Honey, sitting on Mori's shoulders, has somehow procured a slice of cake so impossibly large that it looks comical, and the taller senior has Usa-chan draped over one arm. Kyouya can see traces of a smile.

They look like a family.

_We're so delusional,_ he thinks.

He is just about to put the photo away before he notices someone has written above his name, in pink, sparkly handwriting, "Look! Mommy is finally posing!"

He nearly does a double take as he realizes he is smiling.

* * *

a/n » :333

I love Kyouya.


End file.
